Unum Income Protection Challenge feedback thread

[AnnMumsnet]

This thread is for the 50 or so families taking part in the Unum Challenge.
For more information on Unum please visit the Unum pages on Mumsnet.

The families taking part in this challenge have been asked to see how they can cope if one wage earner in the household had their income dropped down to the level they would be entitled to if they became unable to work due to illness or injury and were receiving Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). We have a range of families taking part - those with only one income, those with 2 incomes, and a range of family sizes and income levels.

We'd like challengers to give feedback across the week. We'd like to see feedback at least 3 times (diary-style) plus a roundup of your thoughts at the end of the week.

The aim of the challenge is two fold:
~ to show how families cope with living on this amount - the challenges faced and to explore what families see as priority expenditure and what can be dropped. Those taking part also need to consider other resources they may have access to including savings, benefits, loans and family support. Obviously this varies from family to family so they will need to have a think about what would apply.

~ Unum say "above all we want you to think about how you and your family would cope if this was real life situation and it wasn't just for a week, but for a prolonged period of time. Does the challenge motivate you to put plans in place (if you don't already have plans)? Does it make you more likely to consider asking your employer about the sick pay policy and whether they offer Income Protection?"

Of course Unum know that every family is different and that circumstances will vary. They're asking folks to do this for a week just to get a snapshot of what their initial thoughts and actions are when faced with this challenge.

They want you to think about the following when adding your feedback...
~ What cost or expenses are easy to change and what's hard? What's impossible?
~ What sort of benefits do you currently get from the state / your employer?
~ What do you think you'd be entitled to (and when would they kick in) if this happened to you in real life?
~ What fixed costs do you have? Housing, childcare, utility bills - how would you cope with these in the short term and in the longer term if you had to live on SSP?
~ How are children affected by cutting costs? What do they think about the challenge?
~ What sort of family support do you think you could get?
~ Any other issues/ comments?

As a thank you for taking part there will be a prize draw of £100 of Amazon vouchers to 10 lucky challengers who add feedback as required

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Final round up :

(and update on Sunday ? Day 7 of challenge.)
Hurrah! The final day of the challenge?.and we failed miserably! My sons drama production was today and we bought tickets for granny too (and she paid again when she got there not realising that we had already got her a ticket ? but it is all for a charitable cause at least), so todays spend was £18 for those tickets. That brings this weeks spending up to around £136 for food / groceries / kids activities. Breakdown approx. as follows:

Food £47-00
Kids activities 51-00
Giving / Charities £38-00

With bills added on the total would be miles higher as it would have to include c.250 for mortgage, £24 for gas/electricity, council tax of £35 and then phone bill, water bills etc on top of that too.

So in reality there is no way that we could currently manage on £85 a week if we needed to cover ALL our costs. However, I was pleasantly surprised that our food bill was cut down by careful planning and resisting treats and temptations. I also found a few other pluses (which I know if we had the worry, stress etc of having to use this budget week in week out I would not be describing these as pluses but in the context of doing this for only one week I am describing them as advangtages).

Healthier eating by cutting out takeaways and trips to Mcdonalds
Environmental advantage of using reusable breastpads most of the time (still need disposibles at night as leak too much for reusable to cope with), using less nappy sacks (found some really low cost ones at tesco ? 17p for 100 I think ? but have cut down use of these this week). I have been using the many charity bags that we get through the letter box as bin bags (double line with a normal bin liner underneath so liquids don?t drip in to bin but then just replace the inner bag each time) as the empty bags were never getting collected and were ending up disposed of.
I also bought a huge container of soap and washing up liquid when ethical superstore had a 25% off sale a few months ago and this has helped with reducing cost of these items as I decant into smaller bottles to use and it lasts for ages meaning less trips to shop to buy more and less trips to recycling bin to recycle lots of plastic.

This challenge has also helped us realise that convenience costs! So having to buy food/drinks out instead of making our own sandwiches, ready meals instead of cooking from scratch all adds to the food bill. I have realised how lucky we are to be able to sometimes have a takeaway or a meal out when many others may not be able to.

I totally take my hat off to everyone who does have to manage and I realise how draining and tiring it must be to be constantly watching the pennies that closely. I also want to shout a huge congratulations to those people also as it requires tremendous creativity, originality, wisdom and self-control too.

I never considered ourselves to have many luxury items (e.g. we don?t drink, smoke, have holidays abroad, and we don?t have things like a wii/xbox/playstation etc) but I am thankful that we do have enough to eat, a roof over our heads and everything we actually genuinely need.

It has made us consider the financial plans we have in place e.g. life insurance and critical illness cover is in place but what would happen if it wasn?t that major but still meant that we couldn?t bring an income in. It also has helped us realise that we also need to sort out a will for the future too.

I feel that the children would suffer the most as their activities would have to go and yet with them being homeschooled it is all the more essential for them to have access to these activities. I wish that there was some financial support from the local authority in cases like ours where a child cannot attend school for medical reasons and they cannot provide a place for him anywhere locally so we are having to fund his education ourselves. We do save up things like tesco vouchers to exchange for days out coupons which helps a lot but all the core subjects / books/ materials etc are covered by us.

Thankfully they have been very on board with this challenge and I am very proud of them for that and hopefully they would show the same level of understanding for real if it ever happened.

I remember reading once that the secret to happiness is for your expenditure to be less than your income and this is a great principle to live by when considering needs and wants and what you can actually manage to live without BUT I have also realised that todays cost of living makes this far more of a challenge than ever before.

Well the task has finished and although we've managed to get through the weekend only spending £6 (£1 parking and £5 on picnic food for today's day out in the sun!) we had already failed on Friday!
It has definitely made me think about how much money we fritter away each week on bits and bobs that aren't completely necessary. We also desperately need a new mattress which I can't imagine saving up for with only £85 coming in.
Very interesting challenge and utmost respect for anyone living through this.

The final questions:
Has doing the challenge affected your attitude to protecting your finances?
A little, it has made me realise how important it is to have a backup plan for circumstances like this. I'm thinking we need more savings and have been working on building these back up for the last few months.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
It is definitely something that I want to sit down with dh and discuss our options and have a back up plan in place.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
I would definitely consider it. Before doing this challenge I wasn't aware that's such schemes could be put in place by employers. It would be a big plus point for an employer to be able to offer this to their staff.

So we have reached the end...
I am used to working on a tight budget, sometimes very tight, but this was something else. It isn't enough even to cover the mortgage. So I decided to work to a budget of £85 plus Child Benefit £24. This wasn't a bill paying week. I am guessing if we found ourselves on this budget for real we'd be moving in with my parents or the in-laws and renting out our home.

To answer the questions.

What cost or expenses are easy to change and what's hard? What's impossible?
Fixed bills inc mortgage are unchangeable and we just side stepped this. Couldn't do that in real life. Most other things have some room for movement. Doesn't mean it always works that way though.

~ What sort of benefits do you currently get from the state / your employer?
Child benefit.

~ What do you think you'd be entitled to (and when would they kick in) if this happened to you in real life?
Think full pay for 6 motnhs and half pay for six months but I think I will check to be sure! Luckily my employment terms are generous.
~ What fixed costs do you have? Housing, childcare, utility bills - how would you cope with these in the short term and in the longer term if you had to live on SSP?
No childcare costs but the other costs we could manage a very short time on savings, then we would have to sell valuables or go to our parents. Not attractive options.

~ How are children affected by cutting costs? What do they think about the challenge?
DD is 1 so hasn't passed an opinion... At this age all she needs is Mum and Dad. She has nappy rash atm. We have been going through a lot of nappies. Would be a real headache if the budget was the same every week. I am acutely aware of how much strain financial pressure is putting on people at the moment.
~ What sort of family support do you think you could get?
Our families would give us emotional and financial support but wouldn't feel good about the latter.
~ Any other issues/ comments?
I remmeber a few months ago being on such a tight budget that I stressed out over buying a packet of biscuits (on mat leave with DP unemployed). This was a reminder of that, and that I don't want to go back. Terrible that so many people are living like this.

So.. the final spend....
Travel £46.50 (for work, but count it as may have other travel expenses on SSP)
Groceries £39.80
DN Birthday present and card £21.80

So totally blown by DN's birthday. Presents are a luxury you can't afford on this type of budget.

But this is all without mortgage, bills, emergencies so I am sure we just couldn't manageon this without major changes to how we live. I guess that is the point of the exercise.

Just saw these outher questions:

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
I don't know. I do think for many peopple income protection is a good idea. But I have chronic illnesses so am not a good candidate for it. Our alternative strategy would be DP getting fulltime work (he is a SAHD). If I wasn't well enough for childcare grandparents would be called on.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
Yes. Am redoing our budget atm and will try to work in more money saving.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?

I work for the NHS so it it is a take it or leave it situation. Luckily the sick pay is relatively good.

This has been hard and I genuinely don't think we'd cope in real life.
We both work part time so if one of us were to fall ill we wouldn't have a full salary on which to rely. We are, quite simply, over committed in terms of contracts (as I keep mentioning, simply because it surprised me so much).

We don't have enough savings to provide a cushion for any length of time.

There are many costs that we cannot reduce or avoid: mortgage, phone contracts, utilities, travel (although I didn't include this as I reasoned if one of us was ill we wouldn't be traveling to work), etc.

We would have to get rid of our car. We would have to work to a tight shopping budget. That said, I think we will be doing the latter in order to get some savings together.

Now, for the extra questions:

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
It has, but I am not sure I would be that keen on taking out an insurance policy as I have realised that we already have too many monthly commitments. That said, this may well be 'short term-ism' and I will need to look into it. I wouldn't have considered this before now but this challenge has made me realise if we can't save more money we will need to consider preparing in other ways.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
Absolutely

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
Yes, although I doubt what I find out will be great news. My DH is a freelancer so he would not get anything in terms of employee benefits. Not a great situation.

We need to budget better in order to save some money. We also need to consider what we'd do if one of us couldn't work for any period of time.

I've found the challenge hard but I am very glad I did it. My head has been removed from the sand. . .

We had a bit of an oups month not so long ago. So we looked at our finances and hopefully got things in order. It would be much better when I do back to work after Maternity leave. I hope.

The thing I find difficult is to stop buying toys and things for the kids. Activities too cost a lot of money. My DD does swimming, stage coach, etc etc. Thats nearly GBP 500 per term just on activities...

During our Oups month, we figured out that we can manage to live on our larger salary and put away a whole salary every month. We are going to try and do that as soon as I get back into work. It really brought things home for us.

DH thought he may be made redundant while I was on maternity leave. The week he told me this, the sales started. I would not have thought twice about buying those shoes, at 30% off a steal!. They were ideal for work. But I did not buy them. So I know I can control our spending on us as well as the kids but its hard.

Lesson learnt.

Days three to seven

Day 3 - A no spend day. All meals were made from food in the store cubboard or the freezer.
Day 4 - Purchased a birthday present for £20. Plus another £26 spent on food - including bread, cheese and vegetables.
Day 5 - The only thing that I needed to spend money on today was at my childrens school fair. Spent £10 which includes pocket money given to the children which they spent at the fair.
Day 6 -No spend day.
Day 7 - Spent £5 on cake for the family at an open day. All other food today was from the freezer and cubboard.

Total spend at end of week - £72

It was not too hard to spend under £85 this week. This was mainly because I had a good stock of pulses in the cubboard so I tried to use as much food as I could from the freezer and the store cubboard. However, once these ran out my food bills would have to be higher. However, it helps that we are vegetarians and don't buy any meat. We aslo get some of our food through a food buying co-operative which saves us some money. If my husband was on SSP then I would have to reduce our food bill. The only way I could do this would be to cut out any fairtrade or organic products that we buy and buy less snacks and fresh vegetables.We would have to cut out the internet to save on this too.

We don't spend much on leisure or entertainment anyway. We save alot of money on petrol as my husband cycles 22 miles to work everyday so the car is only used abit at the weekends. My children don't go to any clubs or activities that cost money at the moment.

We get child benefit and child tax credits. We would get this even if my husband was off ill.

Our fixed costs are - mortgage, council tax, utility bills, internet, phone and mobile bills.

My husbands contract doesn't state how long he would get paid for in the event of him being ill. He needs to check this out.

Having two children in the house hasn't really affected this challenge for us at all. We have to be frugal anyway.

The challenge has made me think more about the amount of money that we fritter away on little things here and there. I know that we would find it difficult to live on £85 a week in the long term as it just wouldn't cover our bills. We would have to use savings and I would have to find work if I could.

However as we have managed when my husband didn't have a job at all I think that we would manage one way or another. It would however be useful to put in place a plan for our finances. My husband is more likely to now ask his employer about an income protection plan but he doesn't think they will go for it.

Final post, blew the budget (but not by much).
No spend all weekend, it was a church retreat in Wales, not especially near anywhere.
We got there and found a welcome pack with bread, milk, tea bags etc. They were very welcome, as there's enough bread and milk for a whole week there, and tea bags for a month.
DH found 60p on the ground while walking, which was lovely, and if we were facing the challenge for real would have made all the difference.
As I have previously said, we would be extremely unlikely to be in this position, as DH gets full pay for 12 weeks, then 75% pay in perpetuity if ill. My wage is not much over £85 a week anyway, so SSP for me would mean a net gain in household income if it saved us afterschool costs.
We have 6 months income in savings, and solar PV brings in more than our utilities cost us. We could get a water meter to cut down outgoings if necessary, and use up childcare vouchers we have built up to pay for afterschool care if needed.
I think we could manage even if both of us were off sick, as we live well below our means and have saved for a rainy day.
Thank you for this challenge, it has shown how low our fixed outgoings are, and that saving instead of having treats is prudent.
In summary, we didn't stay under budget, but in reality we'd never have to live on a budget that small, and have resources to draw on should we need to.

Last post, summing up our weekend.

We went to visit DP's brother on Saturday, so had to put £10 petrol in. We had lunch before we left which was jacket potatoes, cheese, beans and the rest of the bacon for DP. For dinner, I cooked chicken in BBQ seasoning, mashed potato and frozen veg. All the food was already here.

On Sunday, we went to visit more family and had lunch before we left again. Soup with brown bread (neither homemade ) and then pizza for dinner with chicken pieces.

Weekends are usually my naughty days for food! But we have used a lot of what is here which helps to alleviate the cost.

If we didn't have such a stock of food here, it would have no doubt been a different story. This would have been the hardest if we was continually living off £85pw, since I wouldn't have been able to stock up in the first place.

This challenge has enlightened me about how much we spend is actually unnecessary, especially DP. He is trying to cut down more on his spending, but I am still battling with him taking lunch to work with him. We have been drinking a lot more, which is doubly beneficial! But we do have issues with the water around here (hard water, needs to be filtered before) so we do need to replace the water filter jug every 3 months.

I'm off to the bank today to open savings accounts so I can make regular payments. We could use that to fall back on if push came to shove. I know DP has savings and illness protection, so that would help a lot if the situation ever arose.

DD hasn't been affected much as I have said before, because of her age. However, we have to start looking at more toys for her now, and they are just so expensive, even on eBay. But I'm going to start buying when I can to put away for Christmas and her birthday. Fortunately, she's only 4 months so won't be so aware when they come around, it's just exciting for us since it's her 'firsts'. I would be more reliant on family to buy her gifts. If they could, if our income went down.

I do not think £85pw is enough for the typical family, and am in awe of some people on this thread!

With our bills, I don't know how we would cut back. I am still trying to leave my phone contract, but apart from that, they are all utilities, rent and car expenses which I would need when I go back to work. I have been inspired to sort out all our paperwork though, and now have everything to hand if we needed to ring to re-negotiate any fixed utility prices.

Thank you for the opportunity, it has been very enlightening.

Total spend - £83

Just adding my final thoughts.

It would be nigh on impossible to lead a joyful life with so little money. I haven't enjoyed thinking about every penny that gets spent, and this didn't even have to cover mortgage and bills. We would go broke in no time if we did find ourselves with such a low income.

This week did force me to check our arrangements for such an event, which are sufficient. We found the test completely academic to be honest, because we would work out some other way to gain income if DH (the only earner) became incapacitated. We didn't feel it reflected anything that could ever happen to us.

To sum up

Well I failed when it came to bill day.
Realistically I wouldn't be able to meet this challenge unless we did some serious readjustment to when our bills were paid.

It has set me thinking on how we can economise and stop plodding along paying out unnecessary expenses, magazines, catalogue bill etc.

Going to have a complete financial overhaul after Christmas and hopefully get some savings behind us.

We definitely would not manage on £85 a week without family support.
It's a very sobering thought

Wow completely failed this task. Found it extremely hard, and I was only accounting for 'day-to-day' expenditure rather than anything paid by DD, eg. mortgage, bills, clubs, etc.

Day 1 - Tesco order = £50
Day 2 - DD1's School trip = £12
Day 3 - DS1's shoes completely fell apart = new sale shoes £20
Day 4 - Friends 40th bday present = £20
Day 5 - Toddler party present = £10
Day 5 - iphone not working properly after getting wet, so forced to buy new landline phone (ours hasn't worked for ages) as new iphone obvs not affordable and have no insurance (stupid when I do the majority of my business over the phone!) = £20
Day 6 - Bread, milk etc. top up shop = £10
Total = £142

So my conclusion is that it would be near impossible to survive on £85, which is a real worry for us....It's also incredibly boring and depressing to be thinking constantly "no we can't do that, we can't afford that". Your world becomes very small.

I know I gave a final roundup but I've had a few extra thoughts on this: I don't see how you can survive on 85 for a week to feed a family of 4 + dog and pay the bills, mortgage etc. This is without the expenditure necessary on school shoes, uniform etc. There is no possibility of saving for the future it's about survival on a day-to-day basis.

I don't tend to spend money on frivilous things like coffee or lunch out, however, I do like the security of saving. This would be impossible and fills me with worry. Currently I pay into a stakeholder pension and various other ISAs etc but this just wouldn't happen.

What I will take away from the week is the knowledge that we are extremely fortunate that we have the opportunity to save for the future and unforseen expenses.

Just saw the final questions to answer as well!
Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
Not really, DH is well protected through his work and I have a critical illness plan that I pay into which would cover the mortgage.
Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
No, DH would be protected through his employment and in the past I have paid into an income protection plan, however, when we reviewed our finances/mortgage I realised that it wasn't worth the money I was paying for it. I would be reluctant to start one of these again and think that making overpayments on the mortgage where we can and living credit card free is better for us.
Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
DH is covered and as I am self-employed (and refer to my answer above) it does not interest me.

CouthyMow
"Oh - and to the poster who said that Uniform is free if you are on a low income but not in receipt of Working Tax Credits - that is NOT TRUE in some LA's. My LA doesn't help ANYONE with school uniforms, and Free School Meals are only for those with a total household income (including Tax Credits help with childcare and Housing Benefit...) of LESS THAN £16,000. I would check with your school office for your LOCAL rules on those two issues!"

I didn't mention anyone's situation but my own, I have already checked as I wouldn't have posted if I hadn't. If I wasn't claiming WTC then I would be eligible for school meals and help with school uniform and believe me my income is far far lower than £16K

Unum have asked me to add these final questions for you to think about in your round up.
Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances? It has made me think about it but I don't have any spare cash in the budget to pay for any plan.
Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income? I may want to but simply could not afford to
Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
I have checked our Employee handbook and it does go into detail regarding long term sickness and Income Protection.

Just saw the final questions to answer
Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
A little, there is nothing I can do imminently to address the situation but it is something to consider for the future.
Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
At some point but would need to revamp our finances first
Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
I'm not sure it's something partners employer offer but he is going to suggest it, so we might have it as an option in the future

Sorry, just saw the final questions too.

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?
It has helped me to re-think what is 'necessary' and what isn't. I have already made some changes, but it was DP who needed this most. He is definately on the path of change, just need to get them packed lunches done and for him and me to quit smoking, for everyone's benefit. I have also opened a few savings accounts so I have a fall back fund if necessary, and DD has savings for her future.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?
I've asked DP to look into income protection if he was to lose his job, as the company he works for is looking very bleak and may have folded by 2013. We plan to go to the bank soon to ask about it. He already has sick cover. For myself, I do not qualify for any payments plans for income protection, as I work on an ad hoc basis and when I do go back to work, it varys monthly depending if there is work. However, I am looking to get a contract for when I go back to work after ML so I can have some protection.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?
My company would do it as I work for a large one. I would consider it, since it is very good with the discount, but my contract again would need to change before I am eligible.
DP does not have an employee benefits package since it is a small, local company he works for.

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?

Somewhat. It has reminded me how horrible it can/could be living on very little, and now that we have 3 kids it has reminded me that I need to put more aside to support us!

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?

Yes I think so. We currently have lots of savings which have made me slack on the saving front. It is especially important to me because we won't have the savings for much longer (buying a house)! I used to put money away every month and now I plan to set this up once again.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?

I will definitely ask DH about it but I suspect it's not something that is offered, being a small and fairly local company.

Was just marvelling this morning at not having gone over budget too catastrophically.

Then remembered that I hadn't counted the £17.35 we spent on a takeaway at the start of the week.

So I guess we blew it.

Has doing the challenge changed your attitude towards protecting your finances?

Not really, I know that if dh lost his income for longer than a month we'd be up shit creek,but we cant afford to do anything about it.

Do you think you are now more likely to put a plan in place to safeguard your income?

Nope, we're in a catch 22 - we dont have spare income to use on insurance etc. Ok, so we spent money in cafes etc - but really, a life with never any treats is no life for kids - I grew up under the constant shadow of my mum telling me how poor we were; its crap. Cutting out beavers and a cafe a wek won't give enough for extra financial security anyway.

Are you now motivated to ask your employer or ask your partner to ask their employer about income protection as part of their employee benefits package?

pmsl. I dont even get sick pay. And dh cant afford to rock the boat at work at all in the current climate.

A further final reflection

DS2 is taking the 11 plus in September. We haven't paid for tutoring, partly because I object, and partly because it felt like a lot of money to hand to someone to do something I can do myself (I used to tutor). But omg the cost of materials! I have bought a bunch of books to work on over this holiday (the test is the second week of September so we don't have much choice really - the books I've bought are short tests in maths and grammar, plus some extra work on comprehension). It came to £60 +! I'd already come to the conclusion that the style of the 11 plus means that they operate social selection as well as academic, but even when you try and do it without spending money it still costs a lot (mock at the school last weekend was £30). How on earth are people on a tight budget meant to afford that.

A few days reflection and my final round up remains the same really. It would be incredibly difficult to live on £85 a week. If I was reduced to that we would manage somehow, but anything non-food/essential repair related would have go. If dh (main earner) was reduced to that we would go bankrupt. We'll have to hope our critical illness cover pays out if needed - luckily dh's work benefits aren't too bad.

its not that bad after all. surviving on £85 was easier than i expected.
but the next week looks tough, as my daughter's birthday is around the corner.
how do we plan for occasions like this. should we be expected to save every week and then put that money in to occasions.
well, i suppose that is the best option really.
but it was a really interesting challenge and made me think a lot about my expenses.

Sunday, due to hangover and DM having children we spent nothing, meaning for the week I've only spent £80. but I don't thin I could do it long term we just did the basics this week no children's shoes or clothes, days out etc.

Final post

The challenge hasn't made me think of "protecting our finances" but has made me consider saving more and keeping it separate from our other savings, just incase.

I wouldn't use a "Plan", Its something that we can protect ourselves from without paying for a "plan" if we squirreled enough away to say top up the SSP to £100 we would be able to live quite well off that.

DP employer makes the benefits package very clear and simple so I was already aware of it but, yes had I not been I would have asked.